Days Until Heartbreak/Eternity
'' this is not the end'' of our journey i will love you for all eternity part seven of Days Until Heartbreak "Come on," I beckon to my patrol. Firefly, a young she-cat who is venturing outside for the first time is utterly excited. I'm bemused by her excitement. It's not much of a big deal to be learning where you'll be walking around for the rest of your life. But I let her have her fun. Aura is standing next to me, but a step behind. Usually she would walk right next to me but after our argument, she learned to follow instead of lead. "You seem tense," Aura mews to me, "Are you alright?" I'm irritated that she keeps butting her head into my business. "Fine," I mew curtly, "I don't want to talk about this." Not with you, you wouldn't understand. "You never want to talk about it," her voice is hesitant. I barely allowed her on this patrol, since she's still on cleaning duty. But there's not enough cats to go around, so I reluctantly let her join up. "Please, Sari, I want to help you." "I don't need your help," I scoff, "Someone like you can't help anyone." Aura is silent after that. I refuse to let her get under my skin. "Sweetie, Firefly, we'll do battle training here. Tomorrow I'll show you both the rest of the territory." They nod excitedly. "Aura, you can train Sweetie. I'll train Firefly." Aura flicks her ear and takes Sweetie to the side and begins to talk about being on your guard at all times. Firefly puffs her chest proudly at the thought of being trained by the leader. I narrow my eyes. "Block this move." No sooner had I spoke, I lunge for the small orange she-cat, knocking her backwards and pinning her down. "Too slow." Firefly's green eyes are wide with shock. I let her up and I mew. "Get past me." She blinks at me and crouches uncertainly. I take in her pose. She's favoring her right side and her tail is twitching with excitement. She's too naive and any tom can see that. They'll take advantage of her almost immediately. Firefly takes a few steps forward before darting for my left. She's fast, I'll give her that. My paw flashes out and catches her, but she ducks and swerves for my right instead. (Bad technique because any cat could just kick her aside and she'll be trapped.) I do exactly that and Firefly is trapped under my paw. "Good idea, but you're not doing it right," I let her up. "If you want to get past a tom, analyze them first. Notice their stance and their weak points. Take advantage of their weak points and then execute your plan." Firefly nods, looking determined. Good, she won't be hard to train. The faster she learns how do defend herself against toms the safer she'll be. There's no telling how the toms will take advantage of her if she's not ready. Well not toms like Ice obviously. "Try again," I tell her. "See if you can perfect it this time." Firefly nods again and she watches me. I relax my stance so she can't tell which paw I'm leaning on. She's still favoring her right. I'll need to tell her to make sure she's balanced. She darts forward and slip to my right before I can even reach out. She must have noticed my assumption that she would go to the left first. I grunt and twist around, clamping my jaws around her jaws and tugging her gently back. Firefly gasps and she lowers her eyes. "Did I fail?" she asks meekly. "What? Of course not!" I frown, "You just didn't quite make it past me. It was easy to predict which way you were going to go. I want you to try again but this time don't lean on one side when you crouch, okay? And don't make it obvious that you're analyzing your opponent. Toms are smarter than that." She purses her lip and crouches. "Also," I say, "That was a very good attempt." She purrs and I relax completely, thinking it would take her a bit to actually stop being proud and attack. Suddenly she rockets past me and I barely manage to stick out my paw. She jumps right over it and triumphantly yowls. "I did it!" I sigh. "You win." She grins and I smile wryly at her. "Aura, let's try Firefly versus Sweetie. I think Firefly's ready to do a mock battle with Sweetie." Aura looks back and nods. "What do you want to have them do?" "A one on one battle. No claws and you win if you pin down the other cat. Fight!" Firefly crouches and eyes Sweetie. I notice she's shifting constantly, as if hiding what she's going to do. She looks like she's deciding her first move rather than watching Sweetie. I praise Firefly mentally in my head. Sweetie lunges for her, doing a quick feint. Firefly falls for it at first but when Sweetie jumps on her back, she rolls over and crushes Sweetie. The cream colored she-cat lets out a yelp of surprise and kicked Firefly off. The ginger she-cat goes flying and she hit the ground hard. Sweetie darts for Firefly but at the last moment, Firefly dodges and pushes Sweetie down, pinning her. "Good job, both of you," I praise, "you can go back to camp and rest." They both ran excited back to camp, obviously pleased. Aura and I stand awkwardly side by side. "You're still acting weird," Aura persistantly says, "I want to know what's wrong." "And I don't want to tell you," I mutter prickly, turning away, "Go clean the nests again." As I stalk away, I can feel Aura's stare as she watches me leave. It unnerves me. I decide to go on a little hunting trip for myself. I have to get away from the camp for awhile. I find myself out deep into the forest opposite of our territory near the toms. I had just recently added this area to our territory since we needed more space due to the toms and the Clans. I weave my way through the undergrowth. Lots of cats still lived around here and I don't mind, as long as they didn't bother us. There is some murmuring up front and suddenly a little kitten jumps out at me. "Enemyyyy!" He squeals and another kid bundles into me. Their claws do no harm to my semi-thick pelt and I shake them off crossly. "I'm so sorry!" A tom's voice sounds behind me and I turn to find him herding the kits back towards the bush, "You're Sari, aren't you?" Before I can answer, a she-cat walks out and fusses over the kits. "Oh, did you find them, Taki? I'm so glad you did. I thought they would be attacking someone-" She catches my eye and freezes. I stare back at her, shocked. "Oh, uh, I'm really sorry, Sari, our kits didn't mean it. They were just playing." The fear in her eyes are plain and I swallow. "It's fine," I manage, turning away. The way they had come together, I knew they were mates. Happy mates. They had stared at me like I was a demon who was going to tear them apart. But then of course, my group rejected the life they had. I head away from them, not wanting to dwell on a life I can have, but can't because of...Shineblossom; or is it because I rejected it? But each time I get somewhere, there's always another family having great times together. I can't stand it anymore. I find a hidden sheltered area and sob. I cry for the things that I can't have. The things I've destroyed. The way I've become because of love. I cry until everything is an eternity away.